


The Game Was Not Half Played

by daisynorbury



Series: Aulë’s Gift [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisynorbury/pseuds/daisynorbury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chapter 0. How they met.<br/>This story is far more effective if you read it <i>after</i> Aulë’s Gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Breath.  
In, out.  
Cool, damp.  
Lungs, nose.  
In, out.  
In, throat dry.  
Out, thirsty.

Sore.  
Back, feet.  
Chest.  
Moving.  
Hips shift. Knees bend.  
Walking.   
Heels, stones.  
Hands, pockets.  
Shoulders, weight. Pack straps.

Breeze.  
Hair brushes cheek, nose. Tickles.  
Draws out a hand to scratch. Cloth in it.  
Knit cap. Goes on his head.

Sees nothing.  
Hears nothing.  
Smells nothing.  
Doesn’t notice.  
Walks.


	2. Chapter 2

A straight, narrow track of brown earth slides away beneath his feet.  
Bare earth rimmed with green grass, stones.  
Butterflies flickering, here and there. Yellow. Pale blue.

Silent river to the left, ripples in glass, sun low to the right over the fields.  
Spring-warm where it shines but cold in the shadows.  
One foot, two, again. Slow. North on the east bank.  
Up ahead: white mist on a lake. The south end. Walk.

*

A town floats by, way away to the west, riding the mist. _Been here before._  
He could only guess at the number, not count them. Too many. Too much time.  
_Lake Town? That’s leagues away. Weeks away. I was in Lothlorien just…_

He doesn’t go to it. It fades with the morning as he moves north.  
The sun climbs the sky. Tiny, silent birds dart out of holes in the riverbank.  
A fly tickles his wrist. He flicks it away, and brushes the flask at his hip. Thirsty again.  
He drinks. Water? Just wet. Beer? Could be. Tastes like wet.

By afternoon he’s walked the length of Long Lake. By sunset Dale is nearing. He’s sleepy.  
His feet stop. He looks at them, curious.  
Wriggles his toes. Bumps move at the ends of his dirty boots.  
Steps off the road into the grass beside it and sits down heavily.  
His shoulders ache. Shrugs out of the pack and pulls it open. Sticks a hand into the depths- past fabric and a pouch of small, hard things- ‘til he feels a rough lump. Bread.  
Pulls it out, bites off a chunk, chews. It tastes like the inside of his mouth. Like nothing. Like the water/beer, but dry.  
Stares out over the fields. A doe is watching him.  
She flicks an ear, its edges glow in the last of the day’s light.  
Eats the bread, digs in the pack, finds cheese, eats that too.  
The doe bounds silently away into the dusk. 

Squishes the pack into pillow-shape, lies down in the grass. Sleeps. 

*

Wakes to silence. Sits and stares at the river for a time.  
Snakes an arm into his pack and pulls out a pouch-shaped net.  
Finds a branch, ties the net to it, and heads down to the riverbank.  
Maneuvers the net into a sheltered overhang and waits, end of the branch in his hand.

Awakened by a tug. Pulls the net out of the water and a trout comes with it.  
Pulls a knife from his belt, and cleans the fish on a rock on the riverbank.  
Carries net and fish back to his pack.  
Remembers his tinderbox, and casts his gaze around, but there’s no dry wood to hand.  
Re-packs the net and assembles himself for walking again.  
Picks up the fish, eats the flesh raw as he plods north. Like solid water. Like wetter bread, or softer cheese. Like the inside of his mouth. Like nothing.  
Walks.  
The river slides past beside him, the track slides past beneath him.  
Green, brown, green.  
The morning is bright and cool.


	3. Chapter 3

After a long, silent time of walking, the path widens. He looks up, then stops. Dale. He could guess at the number. Too many, too much time. Dale means people. And for the first time in two days it occurs to him to wonder if he’s been walking around unshielded. And then he wasn’t, as soon as he had the thought. Breathe in, shield up. Walk. People. Same as always.

Except a bit different from always, since the fair seems to be on. That’s a diversion, anyway. Pelmeni vendors, stock shows, acrobats. Brass bands and games on the green. Children running around with balloons and soap bubbles. Things to enjoy.

He wanders around the fair. When he tries to buy an ice cream, he sees the vendor’s mouth form words, but he can’t hear them. He shakes his head to try to clear his ears. It works. Over a few seconds the ringing silence fades to muffle, and then he can hear children laughing, a hurdy-gurdy, a cow. Somewhere an auctioneer. And the ice cream vendor asking him if he wants wafers. He stares for a moment and clears his throat.

“Wafers. Yes. Please. Chocolate, if you have.” The vendor does.

He fishes in his pocket, finds a silver florin, and hands it over. The vendor gazes at it and says, “Sorry sir, can’t make change for that.” 

He shrugs. “Keep it.” He walks away, scooping up a bite with his wafer. When the ice cream hits his tongue it does not taste like nothing or water or the inside of his mouth. It tastes like honey and lemons and fresh cream, and is cold and smooth and beautiful. But it doesn’t smell like lemons. The wafer doesn’t smell like chocolate.

He wanders over to the sheepdog trials, which are just beginning. He settles in to watch, and spends a happy couple hours doing nothing but watch dogs herd sheep, listening to the calls and the bleats and the barks and the cheers. A man comes around with a popcorn cart. He buys a big bag and shares it with the family sitting next to him. When it’s over he lies back in the grass and stares at the clouds. He falls asleep.

He’s awakened by the sound of someone chuckling. He breathes in and looks around. Early morning. A woman is smiling down at him, arms crossed over her chest. “Had a good time last night, did we? I hate to spoil your lie-in but we need to clear the green for the games today. Don’t want someone throwing a caber at you.” She extends a hand. He grasps it and lets her pull him upright. He brushes himself off, thanks her, picks up his pack, and goes to find breakfast. He realizes he must have slept for quite some time. 

*

He’s meandering the aisles of the stock barn when he hears fiddle music waft in from outside. He pats the pig with whom he's been conversing on its bristly pate, and heads out into the sunshine. He spots the fiddler across the fairway and starts toward her, then realizes she’s only one of a group of musicians sitting in lopsided circle near a low stage. Turns out she was improvising an overture, and soon she’s joined by a flute, a concertina, two drums and a harp. He knows the tune. He knows many variations on the tune. He knows harmonies and descants, and which communities sing which versions of the words, and which didn’t put words to it at all. He even knows the last time he heard it, and the last time he played it himself. When he reaches them he sits down just outside their circle, as several other people have. He taps his foot and smiles, and listens without joining the singing. During the second verse he fishes around in his pack and pulls out a tin whistle. When they begin the third verse he joins them with the whistle descant popular in the Blue Mountains. The crowd claps and the musicians crow- at least those whose mouths aren’t busy around reeds. The drummers start pushing the tempo in the fourth verse, and by the end they’re all playing as fast as they can, and then collapsing in laughter. People clap him on the back and there are handshakes and introductions, and he joins them for two more songs.


	4. Chapter 4

He has no idea if he’s still alive.  
Or where or what, or anything.  
He knows he knows nothing, nothing.  
It looks like Dale, and a fair. Dogs still herd sheep and popcorn still crackles on his tongue. He remembers songs from long ago.  
But that doesn’t mean that anything is real. That _he_ is real.

It was… done.  
Over.  
It had been over, he’s sure.  
The glorious, awful Grand Experiment had ended.

Everything from Before was fuzzy, but he's pretty sure he’d decided to just let it all go. Let him go. Back in Lothlorien. Sleep forever. He’d wanted to sleep forever. Maybe he was. Maybe this is what you see when you sleep forever. Maybe that was Mandos on the fiddle, and Este on the harp and Ulmo on flute, and all the music and voices were angels around him, and he was finally home. The last home. If so, he wasn’t about to complain. Lovely weather here. And a lake at dawn shrouded in mist, a lazy river full of fish, ice cream, pigs to pat, music… 

It looked like Middle-earth. That was okay; he’d had many happy years there. And he could touch things and feel and taste them, and see the shining, snow-capped mountain, and hear the larks singing… But it would have been nice to smell things, too. Had he ever taken the time to imagine heaven, he doubted he’d have imagined it without the smell of fresh-cut hay in the stockbarn, or sweetcorn roasting on the grill in the beer garden, or the lilacs that lined the fairway.

Still. 

_But if this is Mandos, where… ?_

Este-of-the-harp interrupted his musing. “Hey, we’re gonna go watch Jon compete in the log-rolling, want to join us?”

He smiled and said “No, actually I think I want to play some more. Thanks, though.”

They waved and headed off. He picked up his pack and went back to the green where he’d awakened that morning. He fingered the whistle idly as he walked, remembering tunes from Before. From Life. He found a bench and sat down, dropping his pack on the ground. He sat there alone in the sunshine, noodling about on the whistle. He zipped through some old tunes and lazed through others. He played an old favorite twice in a row. Then his head came up as it followed his nose. His nose smelled strawberries. He blinked. A little girl and her mother passed him, hand-in-hand. In her other hand the girl carried a waffle laden with custard and fresh strawberries. He watched them pass, his lips curling up in a grin. Maybe heaven wasn’t as incomplete as he'd feared. As he brought the whistle back up to his mouth something on the other side of the field caught his eye. And all the space around him seemed to fill suddenly with depth, and reality once again became real. Solid.  
Better.  
A dwarf.

_Gimli._

He couldn’t even see the boy’s eyes from this distance.  
It didn’t matter.  
His shield melted away.

Anyone who happened to turn his direction would see that he was not like themselves, not nearly. Any one of them with enough imagination could surmise the truth. 

He did not beckon, but the boy started toward him anyway. Gimli was smiling, half-skipping across the green, long ponytail bouncing on his back. In the time it took the child to reach him, Legolas managed to wrestle the shield back up. The dwarf stuck his little hand right out and said, “Hi, I’m Freor. I heard you playing your flute from over there. What was that song?”

Legolas took the offered hand and shook it once, looking straight into the lad’s eyes. _Oh dear God. Gimli. I…_

He cleared his throat. Instead of letting Freor’s hand go, he put the tin whistle in it and closed Freor’s fingers around it, saying, “Hello, I’m Leif. It's called ‘You came back for me’. And actually it’s not a flute, it’s a tin whistle. Would you like to try it?”

*

“Son, do you know what time it is?” Legolas was engrossed in Gimli and hadn’t seen the adult dwarf approach. When he heard the voice he looked up, startled. Freor looked up, too. “Oh. Hi Dad.”

Freor’s father cocked an eyebrow at him. “And when were you planning on meeting your family at the cider stand?”  
“Am I late?”  
“Yes. Don't do that. I was getting nervous.”

Freor’s father peered at Legolas and seemed to be sizing him up. He addressed his son. “Who’s your friend?”  
“Leif. He’s teaching me tin whistle. Leif, this is my dad and sister. Where’s Hildis?”  
“She’s waiting at the cider stand in case you went back there. Do you still want to see the horse jumping? The last show’s in fifteen minutes. We should go get seats.”  
“Yeah! Can Leif come?”  
“That’s up to him.”

Freor-Gimli turned back to Legolas, all friendliness. He was everything Tholl hadn’t been. He was warm and engaged, open and sweet. He’d hung on Leif’s every instructional word about the whistle, asked insightful questions, and didn’t get frustrated when he couldn’t do new things right away. He was little-boy puckish with all the downy cheeks and freckles and missing front teeth that implies. Legolas imagined he had a clear vision of the heartbreakingly beautiful young adult dwarf Freor would soon become. And then the boy said, “You want to come see the horses with us?”

Legolas was overwhelmed. Heaven, reality, love, despair, resurrection, hope, impossibility, day, night, up and down… just words. All meaning, all sense, swept away. He felt disconnected from his body. He wasn’t aware of choosing to speak, but heard his own voice say, “Sure.”

Freor held out the whistle and Leif took it from him. He returned it to the pouch at his belt. Gimli’s father held out his hand. Legolas stared at it for half a second and then shook it. Auto-pilot. Autonomic. He said, “Fror Fholsson, at your service.”

“Leif Green, at yours and your family’s.” Formula. Habit.

Legolas was relieved, to be honest, that the littlest one (Sindri?) was fussing on the walk to the horse-jumping arena and monopolizing her father’s attention. It gave Legolas an opportunity to collect himself. He kept his eyes off Freor and did the mental work of remembering and preparing the Leif Green persona. He patted the exterior pouches of his backpack and found the slim metal case of business cards. He transferred it to the chest pocket of his shirt. He gave some conscious thought to his shield. Made sure it was in place. He paid attention to the air around him, feeling for a breeze, and made sure his hat was stuffed in his coat pocket. They approached the bleachers. Hildis and Freor wanted to sit right up front, so they did. Once they were sitting and Sindri sucking on a bottle, Fror engaged him in conversation. Legolas thought he did a pretty good job, considering.

“I must admit I’m a little surprised that people named ‘Green’ would call their son ‘Leif’.”  
“Oh, I was the lucky one. They named our horses ‘Kelly’ and ‘Forest’.”  
Fror laughed. “You in town for the fair?”  
“Yes. I’ve only been here a couple days but I like it so much I plan to stay.”  
“Oh? Where you from?”  
“The Greenwood originally; recently the Iron Hills.”  
“Not a lot of mannish towns out there.”  
“No, it’s pretty quiet.”  
“Well welcome to Dale and all that, though it’s not really my place to welcome you here.”

Freor had been watching the horse-jumping intently- but apparently also listening to his father’s conversation- because at that moment he chimed in with, “We live in The Kingdom. Most of the time we stay there but Dad said I could see the horses today. Can I see your whistle again?”

Legolas slipped the whistle back out of its pouch and handed it to him. Then he pulled the card case from his shirt pocket, flipped through the stack until he found the right one, and handed it to Fror. He said, “I’m a music teacher by trade. Look me up if any of yours want lessons. Or you, for that matter.”  
Fror read it. “Thanks. I will.” 

Legolas turned his attention back to Gimli. Freor was fiddling with the tin whistle, and Legolas realized the boy was trying to remember the fingering for the first line of “Sweet and Low”, which he’d taught him on the bench by the caber green. Fror and Hildis were intent on the action in the ring, but Freor was more interested in the instrument in his hands. Legolas steadfastly refrained from thinking about little Gimli’s lovely hands anywhere on his person. Dwarves grew up fast. Not as fast as men, but Legolas figured he only had another forty years to wait before he could slot the latest Gimli into his fantasies without feeling like a creep. Forty years. Nothing. Blink of an eye. Freor was nearly as young as Nain had been, but this was so different. Legolas knew his vigil had begun (and there was no way he’d neglect a thorough check into Fror and any other parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles the boy might have (and even this elder sister)), but his initial impression of Gimli’s new family was one of care and love and respect. He’d be surprised if his subsequent examination of them gave him any reason to worry.

When the show ended Sindri was fussy again, and Fror told them he’d like to run her around on the jungle gym for awhile. Leif said, heart full and eyes swimming, “Well. I'm very glad to have met all of you. And thanks, this has been fun. But I have an appointment in half an hour and should be going.” Freor, instead of just holding out the whistle for Legolas to take back, reached for Leif’s hand instead. The boy spread the elf’s palm open, then placed the tin whistle in it, and closed Leif’s fingers over it again. Legolas imagined himself dropping to one knee to pull Freor into his arms, kiss his forehead, cheek, eyes. Instead he only shook his hand. And then shook his father’s and sisters’ hands, and walked away.

He walked straight on through the fair, and down into the business district. There he discovered it was Saturday and the banks and realtors’ offices wouldn’t be open until the day after tomorrow.  
No matter.  
He had time.


End file.
